Yahoo China loses piracy suit appeal

The IFPI has said that a Beijing appeals court has upheld a ruling against Yahoo China over its search engine's links to outside Web sites that carry unauthorized music.

The industry group had previously accused Yahoo China of helping online music pirates. The IFPI is representing Warner Music Group Corp., Sony BMG and Universal Vivendi and the suit accused Yahoo China "of violating copyrights because of links between its search engine and Web sites with 229 illegally copied songs."

In April, the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled that Yahoo China had indeed facilitated the copyright infringements and awarded the record labels 210,000 yuan ($27,000) in damages.

Yahoo China appealed but apparently the decision has been upheld. The courts did not confirm or deny the report however.

3 user comments

If I had some power with Yahoo, the search engine would remove Sony, WB, and Universal from any search that people used for music/movies. Then when people want blueray etc. they would not be linked to any of the owner company sites. There crying needs to stop.